Blog Swap with Author Tristi Pinkston: Criticism

I am so excited to announce my very first guest author, who (squeal!) is none other than Tristi Pinkston. Tristi and I have "swapped" blogs. You can check out what I wrote for her by clicking here. Now without any further delay, here is Tristi's post.

The first time I was ever
criticized, it was like a punch in the gut.

My mom was very doting, and in her eyes, I could do no
wrong. My first publisher did a very
light edit on my first two books, so it wasn’t until I was writing my third
book that someone actually said to me, “This needs a lot of work.” Up until that point, I had believed myself to
be practically perfect. When no one ever
tells you that you need to change, you will naturally think that you must be
doing everything right. Right? To hear that I wasn’t the best writer ever,
to hear that I didn’t have the author’s version of the Midas touch, was
devastating.

I almost stopped writing.

I hadn’t been prepared for
criticism. And I didn’t know how to take
it.

I’m going to be really honest and share something with
you. If you’re a writer and you can’t
take criticism, you have two choices—you can either find another profession, or
you can grow a thicker skin. You really
don’t have other options. Authors are
criticized all the time. They get it
from their editors, their agents, their reviewers, their mothers-in-law, from
some random persons on GoodReads who think they are the book world’s answer to
Siskel and Ebert—before Siskel died, of course.
You can’t enter this industry thinking you’re infallible. Everyone has their off days, and believe me,
people will pounce on those off days like mice on chocolate-covered cream
cheese. It’s what you do with it that
makes or breaks you.

After I climbed out of bed and stopped feeling sorry for
myself, I realized that the person who had criticized me had done me a huge
favor. I could now admit that I did have
a lot of rewriting to do. In fact, that
book is now completely, utterly different (it’s not published yet, but when it
is, I’ll tell the story again, and this time with a happy ending).

Now I can take almost anything that’s thrown at me. I’ve had some bad reviews and some negative
comments, and each one has made me stronger.
Sometimes I shrug them off.
Sometimes I pull out what is valid and true, and throw the rest
away. But they don’t send me to bed in
tears.

And they shouldn’t you, either.

Learn to take criticism.
Understand that we all make mistakes, and we can all grow as a
result.

And never, ever, give up.

Tristi Pinkston is the author of (soon to be) eight
published novels and one cookbook. She
works as a freelance editor and author services coordinator. You can learn more about her at
www.tristipinkston.com

Very true. Yet putting your stuff out there has to one of the hardest things to do. It's your baby, and you're setting it up for others to rip apart. I know a lady (very literate and well spoken) who's written two books. She's the only one who's ever seen them. Her fear that someone will criticize has paralyzed her.

Welcome to my author website and blog. I write nonfiction and fiction with LDS themes, but I'm also working on a fantasy novel. Take a look around and I hope you find something here to uplift or inspire you.